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Mon, 20 Oct 2008 Greenpeace praises Apple's environmental progress

Jobs statement on toxic reduction goes down well with Greenpeace

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld US

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Greenpeace has praised Apple for stepping up efforts to reduce toxic materials in its computers and consumer electronic devices.

"While Apple, and other top electronic companies, still face many challenges on the road to truly green electronics, it can only be a good thing to see a top CEO and high profile a public figure as Steve Jobs devoting significant time to environmental concerns at Apple," the environmental group said in a statement on Friday.

However, Apple has still not done enough, according to the environmental group, who added: "Compared to where Apple was before Tuesday, its laptops are definitely better. That in and of itself is a good thing. But not all toxic pieces have been eliminated yet."

Greenpeace was reacting to an environmental progress report Apple published Thursday. Signed by CEO Steve Jobs, the update gave an overview of Apple's promise last year to eliminate polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from all Apple products by the end of 2008, and to remove mercury and arsenic from its displays.

"I'm proud to report that all of Apple's new product designs are on track to meet our 2008 year-end goal," Jobs wrote.

In May 2007, Jobs blasted environmentalists, including Greenpeace, saying the company leads rivals such as Dell and HP, then issued a manifesto, dubbed "A Greener Apple" that spelled out the company's plans.

Jobs also announced that Apple had exceeded its 2007 goal of recycling 13 per cent of the materials in the products it sold seven years before, and would meet its 2010 goal of 25 per cent this year.

Apple currently offers free recycling for its iPods and iPhones, and free recycling for old computers and displays when customers purchase qualifying Macs or Apple displays.

He also touted new research the company has done on its total carbon footprint, and pointed customers to a series of documents that for the first time spelled out the energy efficiency, material composition, packaging and greenhouse gas emissions for each product line.

Energy efficiency

According to those documents, the just-released aluminium-clad MacBook (download PDF) boasts an energy efficiency between 86.6 per cent and 87.5 per cent, while the manufacturing, transportation and use of the laptop during its lifespan emits 1,014 pounds of greenhouse gases.

Greenpeace, however, saw the elimination of toxic materials as the big story. "This will be a first for a computer maker and lays down the challenge to competitors such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba," the group said. "If Apple has solved the challenges involved, there's no excuse for any of these companies not to follow Apple's lead on toxic chemicals elimination now and not wait until the end of 2009."

All those companies have pledged to remove PVC and BFRs from their products by the end of next year.

According to research firm Gartner Inc., Apple accounted for nearly 10 per cent of all personal computers sold in the US last quarter; it doesn't show in the top five global sellers, however.

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Comments received


Christiaan said on Mon, 20 Oct 2008

keep at Greenpeace. Good to finally see Apple starting to lead the way. It's been a long time coming.

dave said on Mon, 20 Oct 2008

Next week, Greenpeace will release a new report putting Apple back in the crapper...

Yvonne B. said on Thu, 23 Oct 2008

In this day when there is no mention of environmental issues in the U.S. presidential campaign it is a brighter than usual light to read of the efforts and facts that Apple has made. They want us to focus on Iraq, clothes, socialism, etc. but the fact is we are going to hell in a hand basket over environmental real issues. Thanks to Apple the complex competitive market is being addressed.

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